Cinderella Project gives teens a chance to be stars

Cinderella Project lets students feel like a celebrity — and
that there is hope.

Photograph by: Handout, Dale Ziegler
Photography

VANCOUVER - Chelsea, a Grade 12 student in Surrey, says she has never ever
felt like a movie star, but on Sunday she will be treated like one, getting
primped and fussed over just like the Oscar nominees.

Chelsea, who asked to keep her family name private, now lives on her own
after having been in foster care. She is one of 150 disadvantaged students in
the Lower Mainland who, with the help of the Cinderella Project, will live a
Hollywood moment getting dolled up in donated gowns and tuxedos so they can
attend their own graduations.

"There are so many things I want to say and so many people I want to thank,"
she says, sounding like a starlet. "I am so excited."

As Oscar day dawns, these students - some of whom have parents who prostitute
themselves, who take drugs, who have a mental illness or have abandoned their
kids or harmed them - will be paired with a fairy godmother or father who will
take them out of their daily existence and shower them with attention.

"It's not just the outfit," says Heather MacKenzie, founder and executive
director of the Cinderella Project. "It's the energy, the buzz, all the
attention they get."

Paige Pogue caught that energy last year.

"I didn't really think there was much in life for me," says Pogue, whose
troubled life includes an overdose on pills at age 15. Even though she was on
the student council and the honour roll, Pogue didn't think she could face her
graduation ceremony. She didn't have a dress and her friends all had four, one
for each party.

Then her school counsellor referred her to the Cinderella Project.

"I went in thinking, I am just going to get a dress and it's not going to be
very fun. But there were three ballrooms full of dresses and shoes and purses
and anything you could imagine. They had servers going around with water and
snacks. You had your own fairy godmother who would carry your things for you and
go get you things. It was really neat."

She tried on many dresses, but saved the one she saw first for last. It was a
gorgeous ivory silk off-the-shoulder number that fit her perfectly. She felt
like Marilyn Monroe. People said she looked like her too.

"As soon as the Cinderella Project came along, I felt like there was a bit
more hope for me," Pogue says, "that I could actually not be a loser."

This year is the 10th anniversary of the project. When the Renaissance Hotel,
which donates the space, offered MacKenzie Oscar night for her event, MacKenzie
saw an opportunity to pick up on that theme.

"Because each one of these kids is a star," she says.

This year, after the grads have found their dress or tux, after they have had
their hair and makeup done by professionals, after they have selected shoes,
clutches and jewelry that they can keep, the grads will walk the red carpet,
they will pose for the paparazzi, and they will pick up swag from the swag tent,
just like the nominees.

Chelsea, who loves the Oscars, hopes to find a dress like the strapless,
corset-backed gown Brittany Snow wore in the movie Prom Night. Only Chelsea
hopes to find it in purple or red to go with her olive-toned skin.

The Cinderella Project was born after MacKenzie, a human rights lawyer, saw
an item on Oprah about a similar project in Chicago. There, the organizers
collected gowns and distributed them in church basements throughout the
year.

"What if I took that, but turned it into more of a mentorship idea," she
recalls thinking to herself.

MacKenzie knew the stats. She knew that at-risk grade 12s often drop out of
school with just months to go.

"I thought, "What can we do to show that if they stay in school, there is a
reward for that."

"But when I started this I had no idea how powerful it would be," she says,
adding that the 400 volunteers, including A-list seamstresses and tailors,
photographers and movie industry professiona- eyed.

Since that a first year, Mackenzie has helped about 80 projects get started
in cities as diverse as Courtenay and Los Angeles. The project has also grown to
include bursaries so that the students can get into the post secondary program
they dream of.

For Pogue, that's the event-planning program at BCIT where she is now.
Chelseahopes to do a public relations degree at Kwantlen and then maybe do PR
for charities.

Happy 10th
Anniversary Cinderella Project! Heather MacKenzie is an amazing woman who has a
heart larger then life, you feel her passion and want to somehow be a part of
this fantastic project; that is and has been locally addressing the needs of our
future...our Youth. Heather, you have been the wish come true for so many kids
and for that you are admired by people that know you and others that just know
of you. Congratulations for taking action on your vision, you are a true
inspiration!

I salute the Ms.
MacKenzie for starting this project. I saw the good it did in Courtenay. I owned
one of the flower shops that did corsages and bouttonaires for the Cinderella
project. It was one of the highlights of the Grad season to be able to
contribute. Sometimes some of these grads would visit the shop and discuss
corsages, colors, flowers etc. and drop little hints that they were part of the
project. You bet we went that one step further. Too many kids these days have
too big a load on their shoulders for their age. Carry on the good work.

A simple gesture,
an act of generosity, with the potential to change a life. Utterly brilliant and
flamboyantly fun---thank you for giving these kids a chance to hold their heads
high, and for telling them, in a very real way, that they are valued.

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